Boxoffice International Pictures
| Company type | Film company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Motion pictures |
| Founded | September 11, 1950 |
| Defunct | November 15, 2005 |
| Fate | Ceased operations |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California |
Key people | Harry Novak |
Boxoffice International Pictures, Inc. was a film distributor owned by Harry Novak, who later used the alternate name Harry Novak Productions. It ceased operations in 2005.
Background
Harry Novak was born in Chicago in 1928, and began working for RKO Pictures when he was a teenager. He started out by distributing posters and lobby cards to film exhibitors. He then enlisted in the Army, and after leaving the service, he returned to the company, which was now controlled by Howard Hughes. In his new position, he advanced to booking and selling films and designing ads.[1][2]
In the 1960s, he started Boxoffice International Pictures. His films were mostly soft-core sexploitation, and featured rural settings and cornpone humor. He recycled the old stereotypes like the traveling salesman and the farmer's daughter; the city girl who goes wild after her first taste of moonshine; into sex comedies that "pandered to bumpkin clichés". The simulated sex portrayed in his films was poorly staged and photographed. In 1964, he used the pseudonym Seymour Tuchus and made the film "Dr Breedlove", a spoof of The Bride of Frankenstein and Dr Strangelove. The movie was a quick turnaround, he shot it in just six days. To avoid a lawsuit from Stanley Kubrick, he was forced to quickly rename it to Kiss Me Quick! .[1][2]
Selected fimography
When I was a kid, my daddy told me, 'There's a buyer for everything,' and I lived to find out that he was right.[2]
| Title [1] | Year | Director [2] | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lisa, Lisa | 1977 | Frederick R. Friedel | [3] |
| The Child | 1977 | Robert Voskanian | [4] |
| Rattlers | 1976 | John McCauley | |
| Tanya | 1976 | Nate Rodgers | |
| Dr. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks | 1974 | Dick Randall | [5] |
| Tower of Love | 1974 | George Drazich | [6] |
| The Sinful Dwarf | 1973 | Vidal Raski | [7] |
| Sassy Sue | 1973 | Bethel Buckalew | [1] |
| Please Don't Eat My Mother! | 1973 | Carl Monson | [1] |
| A Scream in the Streets | 1973 | Carl Monson | [2] |
| Toys Are Not for Children | 1972 | Stanley H. Brassloff | [8] |
| Requiem for a Vampire | 1971 | Jean Rollin | |
| The Dark Side of Tomorrow | 1970 | Jack Deerson, Barbara Peeters | |
| A Girl Called Jules | 1970 | Tonino Valerii | |
| The Nude Vampire | 1970 | Jean Rollin | |
| Sinkhole | 1970 | Toshio Okuwaki | |
| Booby Trap | 1970 | Dwayne Avery | |
| Two Thousand Weeks | 1969 | Tim Burstall | |
| Any Body...Any Way | 1968 | Charles Romine | |
| The Muthers | 1968 | Donald A. Davis | |
| Venus in Furs | 1967 | Joseph Marzano | |
| The Girl with the Hungry Eyes | 1967 | William Rotsler | [9] |
| Kiss Me Quick! | 1964 | Peter Perry Jr.[2] | [1] |
Notes
- 1.^ Titles listed in common English title.
- 2.^ Directors listed with given names, ignoring pseudonyms and misspelled credits.
References
- ^ a b c d e Von Doviak, Scott (2015). Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema. McFarland. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-7864-8212-2.
- ^ a b c d e Perrone, Pierre (June 14, 2014). "Harry H Novak". The Independent. p. 46.
- ^ Friedel, Frederick J.; Smoot, Philip; Helms, Rick; Keeter, Worth (2015). Axe (Audio commentary). Severin Films.
- ^ "'The Child' also scary behind the scenes". The Times-Mail. June 3, 1977. p. 12. Archived from the original on January 30, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Curti, Roberto (2017). Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979. McFarland. p. 135. ISBN 978-1476629605.
- ^ "Tower of Love". The Philadelphia Inquirer. May 30, 1974. p. 20.
- ^ Haydock, Ron (October 1974). "What's Happening In Horror & Fantasy News & Reviews". Monsters of the Movies. Vol. 1, no. 3. p. 22.
- ^ "Toys Are Not for Children". Philadelphia Inquirer. June 14, 1972. p. 15.
- ^ Church, David (2014). "Between Fantasy and Reality: Sexploitation, Fan Magazines, and William Rotsler's "Adults-Only" Career". Film History. 26 (3): 106–143. doi:10.2979/filmhistory.26.3.106. ISSN 0892-2160.
Further reading
- Kirshner, Lauren (2024). Sex Work in Popular Culture. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4875-3711-1.
- Church, David (2014). "Something Weird This Way Comes: Mike Vraney (1957–2014)". The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. 14 (2): 51–67. doi:10.5749/movingimage.14.2.0051. ISSN 1532-3978.